Short-handed Raptors riding out the storm, believe better days ahead

All in all, it could be worse.

It’s probably the fairest way to evaluate where the Toronto Raptors are as they try to tread water in a rising tide of illnesses and ailments, with the eight-games-and-counting absence of Pascal Siakam at the top of a long list.

The temptation is to comb through some statistical trends for meaning or to dissect a defensive breakdown to gain some insight, but it’s hard to escape the fact that the Raptors have been without Siakam -- their leading scorer, passer, and rebounder -- and, at various times, five other players who would feature as starters or key rotation pieces, for more than two weeks.

So, sometimes the smart move is to shrug and keep it moving.

“It’s so hard to pay attention to anything right now,” was how Raptors head coach Nick Nurse put it after his short-handed team practised on Monday at the OVO Athletic Centre as they prepare to host the Brooklyn Nets and Kyrie Irving on Wednesday. “With so many guys out, it’s like -- I don’t want to sound like a goofball here or anything -- but the only thing that really matters is the score on the scoreboard right now because pieces are playing that probably won’t later, different pieces every game.

“[So] I don’t really read too much into the stats. It’s back to the minor-league days when it was ‘Hey they’re 20thin the league in whatever [statistical category and] it doesn’t matter because they didn’t have the same five guys playing for them that they did last month. There’s just nothing in them sometimes.”

The Raptors are 9-8, good for seventh place in the East and just a game-and-a-half out of fourth.

The good news is that the Raptors – injuries and illnesses and all – have managed to hold their own since Siakam went down with a strain in his right adductor muscle. They were 5-4 when Siakam was injured against Dallas on Nov. 4 and 4-4 since.

Mix in some strange losses -- the most recent defeat came when they missed a lay-up to win in regulation against Atlanta on Saturday and then blew a coverage with 3.8 seconds left in overtime that resulted in a game-winning lay-up – and it’s not too hard for the Raptors to talk themselves into putting a positive spin on what’s shaken out so far.

Between Siakam’s injury and a strained lower back that had Fred VanVleet on the shelf for three games earlier this year, Toronto has played just six games with their two all-stars in the lineup together (though it should be mentioned they were 3-3 in those games).

“Not as good as you would like, but certainly not the worst thing in the world,” said VanVleet. “It looks like we don’t have our best player out there, the guy we’ve been playing through [but] … I thought some guys have played well in those minutes. It hasn’t translated to eight wins. We’ve got to squeeze a couple more wins out here before Pascal comes back.

“We just take a big-picture approach to the season, try not to get too high or too low in November and understand where the league is and where everybody is. The teams that are in front of us, I think we feel pretty good about it. There’s not really many dominant teams right now. There’s a couple at the top. Everybody else is kind of within striking distance. I feel good about the group that we have. It hasn’t looked the greatest at times this year, but I’m confident we’ll get there.”

Even some potential red flags need to be analyzed with a raised eyebrow rather than a deep frown.

Toronto is in the midst of a rather deep shooting funk: the Raptors have shot just 24 per cent from three over their past four starts, or -- put another way -- Toronto has missed 95 threes over that stretch. Things weren’t all that pretty before that either, as Toronto’s on a 28.4-per-cent pace since Siakam was injured.

Time to panic? To reassess? To start beating the bushes for more shooting?

Probably not, if only because during the first eight games of the season the Raptors were shooting 38.6 per cent from deep, a rate that had them sixth in the NBA over the opening two weeks, compared with 28th over the past couple of weeks or dead last over their past four games.

"You never accept it fully, but I think you understand where you're at it and understand the schedule, understand, you know, not having a big primary initiator out there to create open looks for guys,” said VanVleet, who was 1-of-11 from three in Toronto’s loss to Atlanta after shooting 43 per cent from distance on more than 11 attempts a game in five starts prior. “Look at the tape, get in the gym, shoot better. That's kind of the formula, you know what I mean?

“So, look at the tape, get in the gym, work on your shot, trying to get better shots. But understanding everything that goes into it and knowing that there's highs and lows. You can't get to up or too down.”

It's remarkable that the Raptors have been able to hang around .500 with that kind of shooting but it helps that Toronto has been +4.6 in turnovers per game over the same stretch, one of the reasons the Raptors have been able to average nine field goal attempts more per game than their opponents – an aspect of their play that has remained consistent and given them a chance to win more often than not.

But while a commitment to causing havoc for opponents defensively -- the Raptors are first causing opponents to create turnovers, which has helped them become the NBA’s most prolific fast-break offence – remains a core value, any chance they have of making a move in the tightly-packed Eastern Conference will rely on Toronto getting healthy and shooting the ball better.

The good news is they are inching close to a full lineup. Chris Boucher and Gary Trent Jr. practised Monday and are expected to be in the lineup on Wednesday, and both are capable three-point shooters. And while a return hasn’t been set for Siakam, the Raptors' all-NBA forward has been doing on-court work for a week now and is making progress.

Otto Porter Jr. (toe), Dalano Banton (ankle) and Precious Achiuwa (ankle) remain out.

Whether a return to health will put an end to the Raptors’ recent shooting slump is another matter. Even 17 games into the season “too early to tell” is probably a fair assessment.

Per NBA.com the Raptors are seventh in the NBA in the number of three-point shots attempted that are defined as “open”, where the closest defender is between four and six feet away, and 10th in the league in the percentage of their threes taken that are “wide open” -- where the nearest defender is more than six feet away. In each case, the makes have lagged -- the Raptors are 23rd in their shooting percentage on open looks and 20th in the number of wide-open threes they make.

There is room for improvement.

“First of all, I think we are a good shooting team,” said Nurse. “I think we are generating a lot of a really good shots from three. I think we are a little heavy on the non-paint too, long paint shots, right now that we will probably clean up as we go here a little bit.

“But as far as generating catch-and-shoot threes for the guys we want to have them, we are doing a pretty good job of that."

The Raptors believe the best is yet to come and by managing to hang around while their lineup has been stretched and twisted almost beyond recognition, they at least give themselves a chance to be proven right.